The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is an independent, community-led membership association of academic and research libraries and library consortia engaged in scholarly publishing, supported by its host institution, the Educopia Institute.  LPC engages in community building, professional development, and research on behalf of its members and the larger community of library publishers.  The LPC does not actively collect personally identifying information about individuals, beyond what is necessary to engage in the activities listed above. This policy intends to help our website visitors, members, research partners, and research participants quickly understand how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information.

Website

Our website collects limited, non-personally-identifying information about visitors (e.g., referring site, browser, date and time of visits). LPC uses this data to improve the functionality of librarypublishing.org and the reach of our work. This information is used internally only, by Educopia staff members, for the sole purpose of refining our websites. We do not use potentially sensitive information collected by browsers and servers (e.g., Internet Protocol addresses) to identify visitors, and we do not disclose any information regarding these IP addresses to others. We do collect information regarding how often our resources are downloaded, and we do report this information as a bulk number in limited locations (e.g., our annual report or in grant reports to our funders), but this information is in no way personally identifiable and is reported only in the aggregate.

Individuals at LPC member institutions may request accounts on the LPC website for the purpose of accessing member-only content or authoring posts. Our website platform stores a name, email address, a username, and a password for each account. The email address and password are always private, but the name and/or username may become public if the user engages in public activity on the site (e.g., authoring posts). A member institution or its representative can request at any time that an account be deleted.

Event registrations

Self-selecting visitors to the LPC website and LPC-related pages on third party web tools (e.g., Eventbrite) may choose to engage with LPC programs or projects in ways that do lead them to share personally identifying information, including through event registrations (e.g., forums, workshops, webinars). In these cases, LPC gathers only the amount and type of information that is necessary to the objective of the event (e.g., for an in-person forum event, collecting an attendee’s name, title, email address, and institutional affiliation). Visitors may refuse to supply this information at will, and Educopia does not share this personally-identifying information other than in specific, documented circumstances to which the visitor explicitly agrees (e.g., by checking a box that says “My name, title, institutional affiliation, and email address may be shared with other event attendees via an attendance roster” to opt into such information sharing).

Research and assessment

LPC conducts research on library publishing and develops resources in support of library publishers, including the annual Library Publishing Directory. Except where permission has been explicitly given to share personally-identifiable information collected during these activities (e.g., as a listed contact in a Library Publishing Directory entry), we report out on responses in the aggregate, usually to identify system-level challenges, gaps, or opportunities.

The LPC conducts surveys of its membership (e.g., votes on community activities) and event attendees (e.g., event assessment). In these cases, LPC typically does not collect personally identifying information. In circumstances where personally identifying information is collected, this information is used only to enable LPC to follow up with the visitor or survey respondent within the spectrum of activities clearly documented within the survey instrument and agreed to by the visitor or respondent. The personally identifying information is not disclosed to anyone beyond the Educopia staff and LPC leadership.  

Memberships and other affiliations

LPC collects personally identifying information and potentially personally identifying information in the processing of memberships, sponsorships, and strategic affiliate relationships. This information is disclosed only to the Educopia employees and contractors who need to know that information in order to provide services (e.g.,  in order to process services or submit payments or invoice clients), and in all cases, these employees and contractors agree not to further disclose this information. Some of these employees and contractors will be located outside of the home countries of our web visitors, members, and research partners. By engaging with our programs, visitors consent to the transfer of such information to those parties where it is necessary to perform services on their behalf.

Members and affiliates may also opt into communication channels (e.g., committee lists and community listservs) that require minimal personal information (i.e., name and email address). This information is not shared beyond Educopia staff and LPC leadership and is used only for its intended purpose.

Data requests and data deletion

Any individual who has participated in our programs may request a copy of their personal information from our records at any time. Individuals may also request deletion of their information from our records and systems, though such information may be retained as necessary for LPC to fulfill its legal or financial obligations. Personal data as described in the rest of this policy is the sum total data acquired, and is deemed non-sensitive. As a membership organization and for planning and outreach purposes, LPC retains historical personal data indefinitely. At the request of an individual, LPC will fully delete personal data except as necessary to fulfill legal or financial obligations.  

Policy updates

This policy will be reviewed and updated as needed; such updates are expected to occur rarely and they will be posted immediately to the LPC website and communication channels. When visitors use our website, this constitutes their acceptance of the then-current, posted Privacy Policy.

Last updated June 2018